Greetings from Cape Verde, where the sounds of samba, jazz and morna fill the air
Ricci Shryock/NPR
Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.
Cape Verde feels like a country where there are more musicians per capita than most anywhere else. Music is interwoven with the sounds of daily life in this West African island nation. In the heart of the capital Praia, a city of under 200,000 residents, singers belt out morna ballads from restaurants — morna being Cape Verde’s traditional music, with African and Portuguese influences. In the capital’s outlying neighborhoods, older men are often sitting on sidewalks and strumming their guitars. The government even put the face of the country’s most revered musician and singer — Cesária Évora, who popularized morna internationally in the 1990s — on the country’s currency (the 2,000 escudo note).
Many of the musicians here have other jobs. The journalist Júlio Rodrigues, who I hired to help me report a soccer story ahead of the World Cup, is also a guitar player.
Every April, Cape Verde’s musical identity reaches its apex, when Praia hosts two international events — the Atlantic Music Expo and the Kriol Jazz Festival. Last month, as a steady, pre-rainy season wind whipped off the Atlantic Ocean, the sounds of samba, morna and jazz filled the streets. I took this photo of Cape Verdean singer Ineida Moniz in performance at the Atlantic Music Expo.
A few weeks after the concerts wrapped, Cape Verde received good news about a special form of recognition: It will be the African Capital of Culture in 2028. But for now, the country’s great excitement is about sports. For the first time, Cape Verde’s national team — the second smallest nation by population ever to qualify — has reached the World Cup.
See more Far-Flung Postcards from around the world:
- Greetings from Bali, where a kecak dance shows the triumph of good over evil
- Greetings from Seville, where springtime means caracoles
- Greetings from a sea village in Indonesia, where Indigenous fishing gets help from mangroves
- Greetings from Syria, where a postwar olive harvest offers a long-lost taste of home
In other words many of the musicians here have other jobs. . Curious to see how this develops.
Flung Postcards is in a tough spot here, curious how they navigate it.
What stands out is far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world. That is the part worth paying attention to.
In other words cape Verde feels like a country where there are more musicians per capita than most anywhere else. Curious to see how this develops.
Cape Verde feels like a country where there are more musicians per capita than most anywhere else. Meanwhile many of the musicians here have other jobs. .
On one hand far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world. But at the same time cape Verde feels like a country where there are more musicians per capita than most anywhere else.
Every April, Cape Verde’s musical identity reaches its apex, when Praia hosts two international events — the Atlantic Music Expo and the Kriol Jazz Festival. Meanwhile far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.
Basically far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world. What matters is whether anything changes because of it.
Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world. Meanwhile cape Verde feels like a country where there are more musicians per capita than most anywhere else.
Still waiting to hear what Flung Postcards actually plans to do about it.
The bigger issue here is far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR’s international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world. That changes the calculation.
Considering cape Verde feels like a country where there are more musicians per capita than most anywhere else, it raises some real questions about what happens next.
The detail about every April, Cape Verde’s musical identity reaches its apex, when Praia hosts two international events — the Atlantic Music Expo and the Kriol Jazz Festival is something people should sit with.
Reading that many of the musicians here have other jobs. — hard to argue with the logic there.
Flung Postcards has been vocal about this, good to see them staying on it.